Parties in the European Council during 2006

This article describes the party affiliations of the leaders of each member state represented in the European Council during the year 2006. The list below gives the political party that each head of government, or head of state, belongs to at the national level, as well as the European political alliance to which that national party belongs. The states are listed from most to least populous. More populous states have greater influence in the council, in accordance with the system of Qualified Majority Voting. TOC

Member stateVotesLeaderNational partyEuropean partyGermany29Angela MerkelCDUEPPUnited Kingdom29Tony BlairLabPESFrance29Jacques ChiracUMPEPPItaly29Silvio BerlusconiFIEPPSpain27José Luis Rodríguez ZapateroPSOEPESPoland27Kazimierz MarcinkiewiczPiSAENNetherlands13Jan Peter BalkenendeCDAEPPGreece12Kostas KaramanlisNDEPPCzech Republic12Jiří ParoubekČSSDPESBelgium12Guy VerhofstadtVLDELDRHungary12Ferenc GyurcsányMSZPPESPortugal12José SócratesPSPESSweden10Göran PerssonSAPPESAustria10Wolfgang SchüsselÖVPEPPSlovakia7Mikuláš DzurindaSDKÚEPPDenmark7Anders Fogh RasmussenVELDRFinland7Matti VanhanenKesk. ELDRIreland7Bertie AhernFFAENLithuania7Valdas AdamkusIndependentLatvia4Aigars KalvītisTPEPPSlovenia4Janez JanšaSDSEPPEstonia4Andrus AnsipREELDRCyprus4Tassos PapadopoulosDIKOIndependent Luxembourg4Jean Claude JunckerCSVEPPMalta3Lawrence GonziPNEPP

DIKO's MEP is a member of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe group in the European Parliament, but the party is not formally attached to any pan European organization.